Monday, November 20, 2006

"As it turns out, predictably so, the tussle between neocon Republicans and their kissing cousin neoliberal Democrat relatives is not about ending the “war” in Iraq but rather over how many brainwashed kids will be sent there to be shot up, killed and maimed, afflicted with “mysterious diseases” that translate into a “debilitating death sentence,” thanks to depleted uranium (see Soldiers Face Debilitating Diseases).

“[Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer] said Democrats would continue funding the existing troop levels,” reports the Associated Press. “Our objective was to remove Saddam Hussein and create an environment in which a democracy could be established. That has been done.”

In Bushzarro world, a realm populated equally by Republicans and Democrats, in order for democracy to arise, a nation must be reduced from first to third world status. “Daily living conditions in Iraq are dismal, with families suffering from intermittent water and electricity supply, chronic malnutrition among children and more illiterate young than ever before, a new report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Iraqi Government shows,” reported the UN News Center last year. “Almost a quarter of the children between 6 months and 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition. In a country where 39 per cent of the people are younger than 15, the young today are more illiterate than preceding generations. Young men with a high school education or better are suffering from 37 per cent unemployment.”

Of course, merely chatting about “a way forward for the region” will accomplish nothing if the central issue is not addressed. And what is the central issue? It’s not Bushzarro democracy. It’s the Palestinian issue, left unresolved and festering for almost sixty years. “As a Lebanese-American, I know that Lebanon can never be free until Palestine is free. The same can be said of all the countries and nationalities in the region. So the Palestinian struggle is held important not only by Arabs, but by other Middle Eastern peoples as well,” notes Joyce Chediac.

Naturally, the Jabotinsky fanatics in Israel, that is to say nearly the entire political structure of the tiny outlaw nation, and their blood brothers infesting the White House and the Pentagon, will not address the central issue of the problem, not in a month of Sundays. Ditto the Democrats, beholden to AIPAC. For as David R. Obey, ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has noted AIPAC has “pushed the Likud Party line and in the process has crowded out other voices in the Jewish community.” Indeed, it has pushed the process out of Congress entirely. "